MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Top French economist refused to accept the Legion d'Honneur
France's influential economist Thomas Piketty, author of the bestseller “Capital in the 21st Century”, refused to accept the country's highest award, the Legion d'Honneur, arguing it is not the government's job to decide who is honorable and criticizing policies of the current Socialist administration. Read full article
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Disclaimer & comment rulesNobody denies that the world is unequal. The problem is when you are denied the tools private ownership, opportunities and the freedom to advance yourself no matter how humble your beginnings are. In 1700 before the industrial revolution everybody was mass poor and equal.
Jan 03rd, 2015 - 05:46 pm - Link - Report abuse 0In 1700 before the industrial revolution everybody was mass poor and equal.
Jan 03rd, 2015 - 09:33 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Do you actually believe that? Everybody was not mass poor and equal.
There was royalty at the top of the heap, then landed gentry and below them were the merchants. Below them were artisans, craftsmen and at the bottom of the heap were the bulk of the population who worked the land.
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Jan 03rd, 2015 - 11:42 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Clyde you said it yourself “the bulk of the population who worked the land.” Farmers flocked to the cities to offer their labour to the new factories as they earned more than they did working for the farm owners.
The conditions of the factory workers were actually worse than those who worked the land,. There was a general decline in the health of the population at the start of the Industrial Revolution. For the average factory worker wages were less and barely kept them above starvation. Because of the overcrowded living conditions, infectious diseases such as TB,Cholera, Polio and Scarlet fever were rife.
Jan 04th, 2015 - 12:25 pm - Link - Report abuse 0According to the records kept by the British Army from the 1700's onwards, recruits from the country areas were taller ,fitter and healthier than those from large towns.
It was not until the mid 19th century that things gradually improved with the establishment of Trade Unions.
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Jan 04th, 2015 - 01:26 pm - Link - Report abuse 0The same happened in the Swedish army at the time, and they didn't have the same industrial revolution on scale of Britain's.
But they choose to abandon the farms and move to the cities & towns. Why? Because you could earn more in the cities.
If you have an entire agro society and the only thing people trade is food and labour you will have as a result an abundance of either factors; Cheap food & cheap labor. Hence your work will be of very little value [because everybody else is offering it to the limited market at the same time] exept you get a healthier lifestyle as an only plus. Yet population in Great Britain exploded after the industrial revolution which lead to the invention of vaccines and chemical pharmacy industry. That aloud Britain to have an abundance of man power to deploy in the navy, commercial maritime empire and man colonies economies and its militias overseas. So you had a generation of workers that did indeed endured hard Charles Dickens conditions, but the following generations enjoyed massive wealth accumulated by their fathers even before the establishment of trade unions. No generation in history can have possibly enjoyed more opportunities in the entire world than a young British male in the late 1800s or early 1900s. More than the Americans in the 1950s. It was all wealth that the industrial revolution provided for it.
The same as the sweatshops of Asia in the 1960s are the most vibrant free market economies of today’s world. Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore. No socialists, labor or peronist nonsense there.
Maybe things in Sweden were different from the UK. In the 1800's vast tracts of land in Scotland in the Highlands and the Lowlands were given over to the rearing of sheep. The population were forced from the land, their houses burned and thousands forced onto emigrant ships to be settled in Canada, Australia or the USA. Those that remained were either forced onto the coastal strip to eke out a living or into the large towns of the central belt to try to get some sort of living.
Jan 04th, 2015 - 05:12 pm - Link - Report abuse 0They did not abandon their way of life to seek better wages in the towns.
Their saving grace was that Scotland had a universal school education system so at least they could read, write and use arithmetic making them employable.
Strange to say, employers were NOT generous with wages in the factories and mills. They would try to cut wages at any turn. Not until the establishment of Trade Unions were the workers able to get a better deal.
As you say the sweat shops of the far east and China are the most vibrant economies but for whose benefit--not the workers. but the people who have the control of the production.
We have heard about the wonderful trickle down of wealth from the Conservative governments. The idea is to take off the brakes on the economy and let it rip. Do away with worker's rights to a fair deal and we will all be richer. Funny how it doesn't work. The money is made but it stays at the top so much so that the UK is heading for the most unequal society in the world in respect of incomes.
Enough pontificating from me !
But answer this, did the highlander farmers and sheep herders OWN the land (with proper title deeds) or did the land belong to some nobleman or some celtic clan chieftain??? That is not capitalism, that is feudalism/communism and if the land belonged to them and their property was seized, and the State did not intervene to uphold the principle of private property you can’t talk of a capitalist economy either.
Jan 04th, 2015 - 05:56 pm - Link - Report abuse 0When they settled in Canada, Australia or the USA they could buy, if not were simply given for free farms and extensions of land that out passed their overlords property back in Scotland whom they have served for generations. It must have being an amazing time for them. One of my great grandmothers was Scottish Victorian and she didn’t seem much suffered from the pictures I have seeing. If I had being your grandfather in Glasgow, instead of going into the Unions I would have hoped on to the first boat to India and made myself super rich.
What do you mean they haven’t benefited, do you know how many millions and millions have being lifted out of poverty in Asia in the last decades?? You need to get your facts straight. Because Picketty rightly says that inequality prevails it doesn’t mean to say people are not being taking out of poverty, poverty in fact is reducing itself.
What do you care more about, providing for your family making an ends of the month and saving up some money for some project in order to better your condition in Scotland or how much in % terms of wealth you are away from Richard Branson ??
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